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“An average hitter with a wood bat, he’d be toast,” said Mike Colangelo, a former Hylton and George Mason University player who spent parts of three seasons in the major leagues and now runs a baseball instructional business. “His parents would have to take out a second mortgage to pay for his bats.”...

Even allowing for exaggeration, that has to say a lot about the decline of batting skills or the type of wood bats being used today, or both. I played ball in high school, college, and on the sandlots, back when wood bats were used at all levels. I can't remember breaking a single one, and it was a rare occasion when anyone did.

Why can't it say a lot about the advances in pitching skills? Or about the composition of current wood bats? If you played high school when wood bats were the norm, that was a long freaking time ago. Major leaguers break a lot more bats these days than they did back in those days.

Hitters are wimps. They need excalibur-like weapons and the equivalent armor to do their job. Meanwhile. pitchers get the mound reduced, the strike zone shrinks, you cannot throw inside without fear of warnings or ejections.....

Agreed, JOSN! I miss my high school days using a JR5 wood bat. I used the same one through my entire three year career.

It can be a bit of both, but as Bob notes, the rule changes of recent years have almost all favored the hitters. On the Major League level, the most likely cause of the strikeout increase is the increase in the number of hitters who swing from the heels and don't alter their approach after two strikes. Such adjustments used to be preached on every level of the game, but it's hard to see much evidence of that today. It's almost as if it's seen to be sissified or something to do anything other than try to annihilate each pitch, no matter what the count.

Of course that's great if you're driving them over the fences at the rate of Curtis Granderson, but it's not so great when you're whiffing like Curtis and whopping like the pre-revival Derek Jeter.

I think it porbably has more to do with the fact that bats aren't nearly as thick through the handle as they used to be, combined with the fact that every kid and their brother is trying to throw a two-seamer or cutter.

People are as good at batting as they've ever been. They may strike out more but this has been proven (at high levels with strong defense, at least) to be the best strategy (90 years ago by some guy named George Herman). Like ASmitty said, it's the handles.

If there IS a reason kids in high school can't hit with wood bats, it's because they didn't grow up hitting with them and getting the corrective negative reinforcement from failing to square up the ball.

People are as good at batting as they've ever been. They may strike out more but this has been proven (at high levels with strong defense, at least) to be the best strategy (90 years ago by some guy named George Herman). Like ASmitty said, it's the handles.

Yep. Assuming you have the strength and ability to drive the ball, and almost all MLB hitters do, you're better off trying to hit it hard as opposed to settling for weak contact. And yeah, thinner handles for sure. Modern bats look very different from the bats of even 50 years ago, let alone the bats from the times of the legends of the days of yore.

Even allowing for exaggeration, that has to say a lot about the decline of batting skills or the type of wood bats being used today, or both. I played ball in high school, college, and on the sandlots, back when wood bats were used at all levels. I can't remember breaking a single one, and it was a rare occasion when anyone did.

It also says a lot about not knowing a damned thing about wood bats. My son played in a summer league last year that decided to use wood -- guess they wanted to help the players get ready for the BBCOR transition but didn't think they could get away with mandating expensive new bats ahead of schedule (dirty little secret: wood is cheaper even if every player breaks three bats a year). Early on, kids were breaking bats on solid contact in BP. Then I noticed that they were all holding the bats wrong -- nobody ever told them about the label, because it doesn't matter where the label is on a metal bat. I think we lost one bat the rest of the season.

I think it porbably has more to do with the fact that bats aren't nearly as thick through the handle as they used to be, combined with the fact that every kid and their brother is trying to throw a two-seamer or cutter.

But mainly, it's the handles.

It's not that thin handled bats were invented only recently, as Ernie Banks and many other old timers could tell you. The maple bat craze (along with the cutter) is more likely the cause of the cracked bat epidemic in the Majors, but that doesn't explain the strikeouts. It's no harder to make contact with a light and thin handled bat that it was with a more thick handled model; it's just easier to crack your bat if you don't make contact on the sweet spot.

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People are as good at batting as they've ever been. They may strike out more but this has been proven (at high levels with strong defense, at least) to be the best strategy (90 years ago by some guy named George Herman).

Well, that works great for George Herman, and it may work great for other sluggers whose HR production makes up for their K rate. But the problem comes twofold: With banjo hitters who still swing from the heels; and with batters of all types who can't (or won't) adjust their swings with two strikes when the situation needs to have a ball put in play. With a runner on third and less than two outs in a late game situation, I'd much rather have a good contact hitter up there than someone for whom it's all or nothing.

Even allowing for exaggeration, that has to say a lot about the decline of batting skills or the type of wood bats being used today, or both. I played ball in high school, college, and on the sandlots, back when wood bats were used at all levels. I can't remember breaking a single one, and it was a rare occasion when anyone did.

It also says a lot about not knowing a damned thing about wood bats. My son played in a summer league last year that decided to use wood -- guess they wanted to help the players get ready for the BBCOR transition but didn't think they could get away with mandating expensive new bats ahead of schedule (dirty little secret: wood is cheaper even if every player breaks three bats a year). Early on, kids were breaking bats on solid contact in BP. Then I noticed that they were all holding the bats wrong -- nobody ever told them about the label, because it doesn't matter where the label is on a metal bat. I think we lost one bat the rest of the season.

Very good point that I hadn't even thought of. "Holding the label up" was always the first thing we were taught about hitting, but of course it makes perfect sense that this wouldn't naturally occur to someone who's only known the metal versions all his life.

Very good point that I hadn't even thought of. "Holding the label up" was always the first thing we were taught about hitting, but of course it makes perfect sense that this wouldn't naturally occur to someone who's only known the metal versions all his life.

Very good point that I hadn't even thought of. "Holding the label up" was always the first thing we were taught about hitting, but of course it makes perfect sense that this wouldn't naturally occur to someone who's only known the metal versions all his life.

Having never played organized ball at any level, can someone explain this to me? What's the reasoning that the bat is stronger this way?

The label is meant to indicate the grain. The label is on the flat of the grain. The label can either be up or down.

Because of the ring-porous nature of white ash, bat manufacturers have labeled their bats with the logo on the flat-grain face of baseball bats for over 100 years, and have instructed players to hit with the LOGO UP. This results in the baseball making contact with the edge-grain face of the baseball bat.

The common explanation for hitting on the edge-grain face of white ash is that this type of contact is like hitting on the edge of a “deck of cards”. Because edge-grain face contact is parallel to the dense latewood growth rings, the impact forces are transferred solidly across the diameter of the bat barrel.

What happens if players hit on the flat-grain face of white ash?

When bat-ball contact is made repeatedly on the flat-grain face of ash bats, it is well known that ash bats will "flake". This is technically called "annual ring separation", and is the failure of the wood cells along the earlywood-latewood interface. This occurs primarily because the wood is a ring-porous species.

Because hard maple is a diffuse-porous species, there are no pronounced bands of large earlywood cells. This means that annual ring separation is not often observed in hard maple baseball bats – and there is no need to orient a hard maple baseball bats to make contact on the edge-grain face.

Past research data on the impact bending strength of wood were studied, and it was found that wood has the highest impact bending strength (i.e. toughness) when it is stressed on the face grain. Results indicate that toughness is up to 30% higher when contact is made on the flat-grain face vs. contact made on the edge-grain face.

<< NOTE: Impact Bending Strength is analogous to placing a stick between 2 supports, and hitting it with a "karate chop" >>

This research showed that flat-grain contact has higher impact bending strength for both ring-porous species and diffuse-porous species. That means that ash would be stronger for flat-grain contact as well, but to prevent annual ring separation, edge-grain contact is longer lasting.

Thus, the best orientation for hitting a baseball with a diffuse-porous species like hard maple is to hit on the flat-grain face.

I was told (and on my son's wood bat this is the case) that the label was put on the face of the grain, so making contact with the label up ensured hitting with the side of the grain, which reduces the likelihood of the bat breaking (since the grains are more likely to separate from each other when bent with the grain than to separate/break when bent across the grain).

Bob if they can manipulate tomatoes to the point where they grow "square" (yeah I know they aren't actually square. Hence the quotes), a springier wood ought to be dead easy. Just hasn't been worth anybody's time yet.

And manipulating the nutrient level is likely to matter a lot, so yeah "steroids" for trees ought to be in the cards. What the performance enhancer turns out to be, dunno.

EDIT: Many moons ago one of my sisters worked at the Experimental Farm. I used to get chapter and verse, but I confess I didn't take really good notes.

That would have to happen anyway if people started breeding trees for bats.

Not really. The rule says the bat has to be "one piece of solid wood." That means no composites or laminates. It doesn't mean that the woods can't be selectively bred, grown under special conditions, or genetically modified.

1.10
(a) The bat shall be a smooth, round stick not more than 23/4 inches in diameter at the thickest part and not more than 42 inches in length. The bat shall be one piece of solid wood.
NOTE: No laminated or experimental bats shall be used in a professional game (either championship season or exhibition games) until the manufacturer has secured approval from the Rules Committee of his design and methods of manufacture.
(b) Cupped Bats. An indentation in the end of the bat up to one inch in depth is permitted and may be no wider than two inches and no less than one inch in diameter. The indentation must be curved with no foreign substance added.
(c) The bat handle, for not more than 18 inches from its end, may be covered or treated with any material or substance to improve the grip. Any such material or substance, which extends past the 18 inch limitation, shall cause the bat to be removed from the game.
NOTE: If the umpire discovers that the bat does not conform to (c) above until a time during or after which the bat has been used in play, it shall not be grounds for declaring the batter out, or ejected from the game.
(d) No colored bat may be used in a professional game unless approved by the Rules Committee.

I was talking about things that might, you know, actually be physically possible. I'm sure they'll change the rule to outlaw light sabers too, as soon as someone figures out how to make one out of wood.

NOTE: If the umpire discovers that the bat does not conform to (c) above until a time during or after which the bat has been used in play, it shall not be grounds for declaring the batter out, or ejected from the game.

this just brings up all kinds of fond memories of what a crazy game this can be.

Bob if they can manipulate tomatoes to the point where they grow "square" (yeah I know they aren't actually square. Hence the quotes), a springier wood ought to be dead easy. Just hasn't been worth anybody's time yet.

I don't know about that. Plant breeding is still largely about trial and error - even nowadays when we can target specific genes we aren't sure what the end result is going to be. How long do you have to wait for a tree to get big enough to make bats out of it?

Are composite bats more durable than composite hockey sticks? Because composite hockey sticks seem to have a high breakage rate.

Depends on the maker, but yeah, composite softball bats break with pretty good frequency. I'd assume that, with the added challenge of squaring up on a baseball as opposed to a pitch coming in a 12mph as in softball, composite bats would break quite frequently as well.